Today's Paper
» NATIONAL
» KARNATAKA

Vivekananda memorial to come up in Mysore soon

MYSORE: The city will have a national memorial for Swami Vivekananda to commemorate his two-week stay in Mysore in 1892 before he left India to address the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.

It will be the city's tribute to the spiritual leader of modern times who blessed Mysore with his presence first at Niranjan Math, which is in a dilapidated state, and later as the State guest of Chamaraja Wadiyar. A meeting was held here on Wednesday by experts from the Archaeological Survey of India and Department of Archaeology and Museum, Deputy Commissioner S. Selvakumar, MP C.H. Vijayashankar, and former Director General of Archaeological Survey of India Nagaraja Rao who decided to take up the memorial work on priority.

Blueprint

A blueprint will be submitted within four weeks and the cost of the project is expected to be Rs. 5 crore. Mr. Vijayshankar promised to release Rs. 50 lakh from the MP's Local Area Development Fund.

Mr. Nagaraja Rao said that it was indeed Mysore's privilege to have hosted Swami Vivekananda who chose to stay here for almost three weeks. While there was a magnificent rock memorial at Kanyakumari where he meditated, it was strange that Mysore had not bothered to dedicate a monument to commemorate his visit. It should be something similar to the one at Kanyakumari with a place for visitors to meditate and a must-see for tourists visiting Mysore, he said.

The master plan for the memorial will house a library, a cultural complex and a meditation hall. The plan will be ready within a few weeks and the work will commence soon.